UN Insider

TORONTO (IDN) – Ahead of the next hurricane season in the Caribbean, faith leaders are calling for action from government leaders, the United Nations system, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regional development institutions.

A statement signed and endorsed by 22 religious leaders from Grenada to Saint Lucia is urging the establishment of debt relief as an instrument for emergency support and reconstruction.

"Across the Caribbean, we still see immense suffering from the hurricanes that landed last year," said Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte who endorsed the statement. "Islands that are struggling to recover after natural disasters and meet basic needs of their people should not be making debt payments."

BERLIN (IDN) – The number of tourists around the world grew in 2017 to an all-time record of 7 percent to reach 1.3 billion. Tourism accounts for 10 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP), 10 percent of the world’s jobs, and 7 percent of the world’s total exports.

The need to turn these figures into benefits for all people and all communities, "leaving no one behind" – as required by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development adopted by the United Nations in September 2015 – was also the subject of ITB 2018, the Berlin travel trade fair in March.

VIENNA (IDN) – Women are under-represented at the managerial and leadership levels within the United Nations system. The world body intends to mend this situation and achieve gender parity at all levels by 2028.

But indications are that it's going be an uphill task. Statistics published by UN Women, the UN Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, show that at the current average annual increment from the P-3 to upper-managerial levels it would take on average 22 years to achieve gender parity in all United Nations agencies. In line with the status of gender parity at a global scale it will take 217 years.

VIENNA (IDN) – Enhancing international cooperation to combat the synthetic opioid crisis, removing stigma as a barrier to the availability and delivery of health care and social services for people who use drugs is part of eleven resolutions the 61st session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND) has endorsed. The five-day gathering from March 12-16 in Vienna also started preparations for the CND's ministerial segment at the 2019 session.

Secretary-General António Guterres said in a video message at the opening session of the 61st Commission on Narcotic Drugs: "With the UN General Assembly special session consensus as our blueprint, we can promote efforts to stop organized crime while protecting human rights, enabling development and ensuring rights-based treatment and support."

NEW DELHI | KABUL (IDN) – The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has documented that, in 2017, 359 women were killed – five per cent more than in the previous year – and 865 injured. Altogether about 10,000 civilians lost their lives or suffered injuries in 2017.

It is against this backdrop that the UN in Afghanistan marked International Women’s Day on March 8, recognizing the global movement for women's rights and the work of activists who have been central to the push for gender equality.

Afghanistan ranks 154th in the UN Gender Inequality Index, and this year’s Women's Day – under the theme 'Time Is Now: Rural and Urban Activists Transforming Women’s Lives' – sought to draw attention to rural and urban women who are left behind in many areas of development.

BERLIN | GENEVA (IDN) – A new document that outlines U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, capabilities and force posture for the next five to ten years proclaims that the Trump Administration does not intend to ratify a global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. Nor does it rule out resuming such tests.

The document, titled 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), proclaims that "the United States does not support the ratification of the CTBT." But the U.S. will continue to support the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO).

HARARE (IDN) – Waving a red cloth tied to a stick while signalling vehicles to stop, 35-year old Denford Muzvidziwa who dons blue overalls and a white helmet, joyfully busies himself on the Harare-Mutare high way which is still being upgraded.

For over a decade after he completed a degree in Social Work at the University of Zimbabwe, Muzvidziwa has never found a formal job that suits his qualification, but he is happy with his new found job in the construction sector, saying the job nevertheless earns him some bit of money to caution him in the face of this country’s fledgling economy.

The author is Executive Secretary of CTBTO, Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization. The following is a slightly abridged and modified text of his address on 26 February to the High-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, multilateral disarmament negotiating forum where the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) in Geneva was negotiated in the 1990s. (Read the original text here.) Dr. Zerbo stressed that "we must take great care to preserve the integrity of the institutions and instruments we have and to build trust in them and around them. This means maintain and securing the NPT and its entire chain of responsibilities – of which the CTBT entry into force is an integral part". – The Editor

Dr. Shamshad Akhtar is the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations and Executive Secretary of Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

BANGKOK (IDN) – In 2018, we have an opportunity to accelerate progress towards gender equality. Movements such as #MeToo have shone the spotlight on an unacceptable status quo and demonstrated how too many women the world over continue to be deprived of respect and equal opportunities. Let’s use International Women’s Day to build on this global momentum for change and suggest targeted solutions to empower women across our economies and societies. Women entrepreneurs have a key role to play.

BERLIN (IDN) – The United Nations and the European Union as well as independent arms control experts have welcomed the results of latest talks between South and North Korea, and called for seizing the opportunities opening up for peace in the region and for reducing international tensions.

The significance of emerging prospects is underlined by the fact that though the Korean War ended in 1953, in the absence of a peace treaty the two Koreas are technically still at war. As The New York Times notes, in the United States where coverage of the armed conflict was censored and its memory decades later is often overshadowed by World War II and the Vietnam War, the Korean War has been called "the Forgotten War".